Part 15

O doubting heart! Far over purple seas, They wait, in sunny ease, The balmy southern breeze, To bring them to their northern home once more.

FIRST VOICE.

2. Why must the flowers die? Poisoned they lie In the cold tomb, heedless of tears or rain.

SECOND VOICE.

O doubting heart! They only sleep below The soft, white, ermine snow, While winter winds shall blow, To breathe and smile upon you soon again.

FIRST VOICE.

3. The sun has hid its rays These many days; Will dreary hours never leave the earth?

SECOND VOICE.

O doubting heart! The stormy clouds on high Vail the same sunny sky, That soon, (for Spring is nigh.) Shall wake the Summer into golden mirth.

FIRST VOICE.

4. Fair Hope is dead, and light Is quenched in night. What sound can break the silence of despair?

SECOND VOICE.

O doubting heart! The sky is overcast, Yet stars shall rise at last, Brighter for darkness past, And angels’ silver voices stir the air.

LXXV.—ON THE WASTE OF TIME.

FRANKLIN.

Benjamin Franklin, distinguished as a statesman, a patriot, and a philosopher, was born at Boston in 1706. He began his career as a printer, and by diligence, integrity and rare sagacity, became one of the foremost of that able and brilliant band of men who were the leaders of the American Revolution. He died in 1790.

1. Amergus was a gentleman of good estate: he was bred to no business, and could not contrive how to waste his hours agreeably; he had no relish for any of the proper works of life, nor any taste for the improvement of the mind; he spent generally ten hours of the four-and-twenty in bed; he dozed away two or three more on his couch; and as many more were dissolved in good liquor every evening, if he met with company of his own humor. Thus he made a shift to wear off ten years of his life since the paternal[549] estate fell into his hands.

2. One evening as he was musing alone, his thoughts happened to take a most unusual turn, for they cast a glance backward, and he began to reflect on his manner of life. He bethought himself what a number of living beings had been made a sacrifice[550] to support his carcass, and how much corn and wine had been mingled with these offerings; and he set himself to compute what he had devoured since he came to the age of man.

3. “About a dozen feathered creatures, small and great, have, one week with another,” said he, “given up their lives to prolong mine, which, in ten years, amounts to at least six thousand. Fifty sheep have been sacrificed in a year, with half a hecatomb[551] of black-cattle,[552] that I might have the choicest parts offered weekly upon my table. Thus a thousand beasts, out of the flock and the herd, have been slain in ten years’ time to feed me beside what the forest has supplied me with.

4. “Many hundreds of fishes have, in all their variety, been robbed of life for my repast,[553] and of the smaller fry, some thousands. A measure of corn would hardly suffice[554] me fine flour enough for a month’s provision, and this arises to about six score bushels; and many hogsheads of wine and other liquors have passed through this body of mine—this wretched strainer of meat and drink! And what have I done all this time for God and man? What a vast profusion[555] of good things wasted upon a useless life and a worthless liver!

5. “There is not the meanest creature among all those that I have devoured, but hath answered the end of its creation better than I. It was made to support human nature, and it has done so. Every crab and oyster I have eaten, and every grain of corn I have devoured, hath filled up its place in the rank of beings with more propriety and honor than I have done. Oh, shameful waste of life and time!”

6. In short, he carried on his moral reflections[556] with so just and severe a force of reason, as constrained[557] him to change his whole course of life; to break off his follies at once, and to apply himself to gain some useful knowledge, when he was more than thirty years of age. He lived many following years, with the character of a worthy man and an excellent Christian;[558] he died with a peaceful conscience,[559] and the tears of his country were dropped upon his tomb.

7. The world, that knew the whole series of his life, were amazed at the mighty change. They beheld him as a wonder of reformation, while he himself confessed and adored the Divine power and mercy which had transformed him from a brute to a man. But this was a single instance, and we may almost venture to write _miracle_[560] upon it. Are there not numbers, in this degenerate[561] age, whose lives thus run to utter waste, without the least tendency[562] to usefulness?

[549] PA-TERˊ-NAL, belonging to or derived from one’s father.

[550] SACˊ-RI-FICE, destruction or surrender of anything, made for the sake of something else; the thing destroyed or given up.

[551] HECˊ-A-TOMB, the sacrifice of a hundred.

[552] BLACKˊ-CAT-TLE, cows, bulls, and oxen, as distinguished from sheep and goats, which are called small cattle.

[553] RE-PASTˊ, the act of taking food; that which is taken as food or a meal; victuals.

[554] SUF-FICEˊ, to be sufficient or enough; to furnish or supply.

[555] PRO-FUˊ-SION, a large quantity.

[556] RE-FLECˊ-TION, the turning of the mind to what has already occupied it; continued thinking.

[557] CON-STRAINˊ-ED, compelled; forced.

[558] CHRISTˊ-IAN, one who professes to believe in the religion of Christ; especially one whose inward and outward life is conformed to the doctrines of Christ; one who has received the Sacrament of Baptism.

[559] CONˊ-SCIENCE, the power or principle within us which decides on the lawfulness or unlawfulness of our actions or affections, and approves or condemns them.

[560] MIRˊ-A-CLE, a wonder or wonderful thing; an effect or event that differs or departs from the known laws of nature.

[561] DE-GENˊ-ER-ATE, having become worse than one’s kind; having lost in worth or goodness; degraded; mean.

[562] TENDˊ-EN-CY, direction or course toward any place, effect, or result; desire.

LXXVI.—THE REAPER, DEATH.

LONGFELLOW.

1. There is a reaper, whose name is Death, And, with his sickle keen, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, And the flowers that grow between.

2. “Shall I have nought that is fair?” saith he; “Have nought but the bearded grain? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, I will give them all back again.”

3. He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, He kissed their drooping leaves; It was for the Lord of Paradise He bound them in his sheaves.

4. “My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,” The reaper said, and smiled; “Dear tokens of the earth are they, Where he was once a child.

5. “They all shall bloom in fields of light, Transplanted by my care, And saints, upon their garments white, These sacred blossoms wear.”

6. Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath, The reaper came that day; ’Twas an angel visited the earth, And took the flowers away.

LXXVII.—DIALOGUE WITH THE GOUT.

FRANKLIN.

1. _Franklin._ Eh! Oh! Eh! What have I done to merit these cruel sufferings?

_Gout._ Many things: you have ate and drank too freely, and too much indulged those legs of yours in their indolence.[563]

_Franklin._ Who is it that accuses me?

_Gout._ It is I, even I, the Gout.

_Franklin._ What! my enemy in person?

_Gout._ No; not your enemy.

_Franklin._ I repeat it, my enemy; for you would not only torment[564] my body to death, but ruin my good name. You reproach me as a glutton and a tippler;[565] now all the world that knows me will allow that I am neither the one nor the other.

2. _Gout._ The world may think as it pleases. It is always very complaisant[566] to itself, and sometimes to its friends; but I very well know that the quantity of meat and drink proper for a man who takes a reasonable degree of exercise would be too much for another who never takes any.

_Franklin._ I take—Eh! Oh!—as much exercise—Eh!—as I can, Madam Gout. You know my sedentary[567] state; and on that account, it would seem, Madam Gout, as if you might spare me a little, seeing it is not altogether my own fault.

3. _Gout._ Not a jot; your rhetoric and your politeness are thrown away; your apology avails nothing. If your situation in life is a sedentary one, your amusements, your recreations, at least, should be active. You ought to walk or ride; or if the weather prevents that, play at something.

But let us examine your course of life. While the mornings are long, and you have leisure to go abroad, what do you do? Why, instead of gaining an appetite for breakfast, by salutary exercise, you amuse yourself with books, pamphlets, or newspapers, which commonly are not worth the reading. Yet you eat an inordinate breakfast: four dishes of tea, with cream, one or two buttered toasts, with slices of hung beef; which I fancy are not things the most easily digested.

4. Immediately afterward, you sit down to write at your desk, or converse with persons who apply to you on business. Thus the time passes till one, without any kind of bodily exercise. But all this I could pardon, in regard, as you say, to your sedentary condition; but what is your practice after dinner? Walking in the beautiful gardens of those friends with whom you have dined would be the choice of men of sense; yours is to be fixed down to chess, where you are found engaged for two or three hours.

5. This is your perpetual recreation; the least eligible[568] of any for a sedentary man, because, instead of accelerating[569] the motion of the fluids, the rigid[570] attention it requires helps to retard the circulation and obstruct internal secretions.[571] Wrapt in the speculations of this wretched game, you destroy your constitution. What can be expected from such a course of living but a body replete with stagnant humors, ready to fall a prey to all kinds of dangerous maladies,[572] if I, the Gout, did not occasionally bring you relief by agitating those humors, and so purifying or dissipating them? Fie, then, Mr. Franklin! But, amidst my instructions, I had almost forgotten to administer my wholesome corrections; so take that twinge, and that.

6. _Franklin._ Oh! Eh! Oh! Oh! As much instruction as you please, Madam Gout, and as many reproaches; but pray, Madam, a truce with your corrections!

_Gout._ No, sir, no; I will not abate a particle of what is so much for your good, therefore—

_Franklin._ Oh! Eh! It is not fair to say I take no exercise, when I do, very often, go out to dine, and return in my carriage.

7. _Gout._ That, of all imaginable exercises, is the most slight and insignificant, if you allude to the motion of a carriage suspended on springs. By observing the degree of heat obtained from different kinds of motion, we may form an estimate of the quantity of exercise given by each. Thus, for example, if you turn out to walk in winter with cold feet, in an hour’s time you will be in a glow all over; ride on horseback, the same effect will scarcely be perceived by four hours’ round trotting; but if you loll in a carriage, such as you have mentioned, you may travel all day, and gladly enter the last inn to warm your feet by a fire.

8. Flatter yourself, then, no longer, that half an hour’s airing in your carriage deserves the name of exercise. Providence has appointed few to roll in carriages, while he has given to all a pair of legs, which are machines infinitely more commodious and serviceable. Be grateful, then, and make a proper use of yours.

[563] INˊ-DO-LENCE, sloth, idleness.

[564] TOR-MENTˊ, to put to extreme pain.

[565] TIPˊ-PLER, a frequent and habitual drinker of strong liquors.

[566] COMˊ-PLAI-SANTˊ, polite, courteous.

[567] SEDˊ-EN-TA-RY, accustomed to sit much.

[568] ELˊ-I-GI-BLE, desirable.

[569] AC-CELˊ-ER-ATE, to hasten the motion of; to quicken.

[570] RIGˊ-ID, severe, strict, exact.

[571] SE-CREˊ-TION, separation of juices.

[572] MALˊ-A-DIES, bodily ailments; diseases.

LXXVIII.—THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

1. The melancholy days[573] are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing[574] winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying[575] gust, and to the rabbit’s tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay, And from the wood-top caws[576] the crow, through all the gloomy day.

2. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprung and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly bed, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

3. The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the wild-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade,[577] and glen.[578]

4. And now, when comes the calm, mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home, When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light, the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers, whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

5. And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side; In the cold, moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf, And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief; Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

[573] MELˊ-AN-CHOL-Y, low-spirited; unhappy; sad.

[574] WAILˊ-ING, moaning; grieving over; weeping loudly.

[575] EDˊ-DY-ING, moving circularly.

[576] This reading—_caws_, instead of _calls_—is sanctioned by the gifted author.

[577] GLADE, an open or cleared place in a forest or wood.

[578] GLEN, a retired and narrow valley; a narrow space between hills.

LXXIX.—EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.

LINGARD.

John Lingard, D. D., was born in England in 1771; died in 1851. With the completion of the “History of England,” which has been republished in New York in thirteen volumes, the literary fame of Dr. Lingard became established throughout Europe. Cardinal Wiseman speaks of this history, and its learned author, in the following terms: “It is a Providence that in history we have had given to the nation a writer like Lingard, whose gigantic merit will be better appreciated in each successive generation, as it sees his work standing calm and erect amidst the shoals of petty pretenders to usurp his station. When Hume shall have fairly taken his place among the classical writers of our tongue, and Macaulay shall have been transferred to the shelves of romances and poets, and each thus have received his due meed of praise, then Lingard will be still more conspicuous as the only impartial historian of our country.”

1. If we estimate the character of a sovereign by the test of popular affection, we must rank Edward among the best princes of his time. The goodness of his heart was adored by his subjects, who lamented his death with tears of undissembled grief, and bequeathed his memory as an object of veneration to their posterity. The blessings of his reign are the constant theme of our ancient writers: not, indeed, that he displayed any of those brilliant qualities which attract admiration, while they inflict misery.

2. He could not boast of the victories which he had achieved; but he exhibited the interesting spectacle of a king, negligent of his private interests, and wholly devoted to the welfare of his people; and, by his labors to restore the dominion of the laws, his vigilance to ward off foreign aggression, his constant, and ultimately successful, solicitude to appease the feuds of his nobles,—if he did not prevent the interruption, he secured, at least, a longer duration of public tranquillity, than had been enjoyed in England for half a century.

3. He was pious, kind, and compassionate; the father of the poor, and the protector of the weak; more willing to give than to receive, the better pleased to pardon than to punish. Under the preceding kings, force generally supplied the place of justice, and the people were impoverished by the rapacity of the sovereign. But Edward enforced the laws of his Saxon predecessors, and disdained the riches that were wrung from the labors of his subjects.

4. Temperate in his diet, unostentatious in his person, pursuing no pleasures but those which his hawks and hounds afforded, he was content with the patrimonial domains of the crown; and was able to assert, even after the abolition of that fruitful source of revenue, the Danegelt, that he possessed a greater portion of wealth than any of his predecessors enjoyed. To him, the principle that the king can do no wrong, was literally applied by the gratitude of his people, who, if they occasionally complained of the measures of the government, attributed the blame not to the monarch himself, of whose benevolence they entertained no doubt, but to the ministers, who had abused his confidence, or deceived his credulity.

5. It was, however, a fortunate circumstance for the memory of Edward, that he occupied the interval between the Danish and Norman conquests. Writers were induced to view his character with more partiality, from the hatred with which they looked upon his successors and predecessors. They were foreigners; he was a native: they held the crown by conquest; he by descent: they ground to the dust the slaves whom they had made; he became known to his countrymen only by his benefits. Hence he appeared to shine with purer light amid the gloom with which he was surrounded; and whenever the people under the despotism of the Norman kings, had any opportunity of expressing their real wishes, they constantly called for “the laws and customs of the good King Edward”.

LXXX.—THE COMING OF WINTER.

T. B. READ.

1. Autumn’s sighing, Moaning, dying, Clouds are flying On like steeds; While their shadows O’er the meadows, Walk like widows Decked in weeds.

2. Red leaves trailing, Fall unfailing, Dropping, sailing, From the wood, That, unpliant, Stands defiant, Like a giant, Dropping blood.

3. Winds are swelling Round our dwelling, All day telling Us their woe; And, at vesper, Frosts grow crisper, As they whisper Of the snow.

4. From the unseen land, Frozen inland, Down from Greenland, Winter glides. Shedding lightness Like the brightness When moon-whiteness Fills the tide.

5. Now bright Pleasure’s Sparkling measures With rare treasures Overflow! With this gladness Comes what sadness Oh, what sadness, Oh, what woe!

6. Even merit May inherit Some bare garret, Or the ground; Or, a worse ill, Beg a morsel At some door-sill, Like a hound.

7. Storms are trailing, Winds are wailing, Howling, railing, At each door. ’Midst this trailing, Howling, railing, List the wailing Of the poor!

LXXXI.—THE SISTER OF CHARITY.

WILLIAMS.

Richard Dalton Williams was born in Ireland. He had been for several years previous to his death, Professor of Belles Letters in the Catholic College, Mobile. His poems all bear the unmistakable stamp of poetic genius.

1. Sister of Charity, gentle and dutiful, Loving as seraphim, tender and mild, In humbleness strong, and in purity beautiful, In spirit heroic, in manners a child, Ever thy love like an angel reposes,— With hovering wings o’er the sufferer here, Till the arrows of death are half-hidden in roses, And hope-speaking prophecy smiles on the bier.

2. When life, like a vapor, is slowly retiring, As clouds in the dawning to heaven uprolled, Thy prayer, like a herald, precedes him expiring, And the Cross on thy bosom his last looks behold; And O! as the Spouse to thy words of love listens, What hundredfold blessings descend on thee then— Thus the flower-absorbed dew in the bright iris glistens, And returns to the lilies more richly again.

3. Sister of Charity, child of the holiest, O, for thy living soul, ardent as pure— Mother of orphans and friend of the lowliest— Stay of the wretched, the guilty, the poor; The embrace of the Godhead so plainly enfolds thee Sanctity’s halo so shrines thee around, Daring the eye that unshrinking beholds thee, Nor droops in thy presence abashed to the ground.

4. Dim is the fire of the sunniest blushes, Burning the breast of the maidenly rose To the exquisite bloom that thy pale beauty flushes, When the incense ascends and the sanctuary glows, And the music, that seems heaven’s language, is pealing— Adoration has bowed him in silence and sighs, And man, intermingled with angels, is feeling The passionless rapture that comes from the skies.

5. O, that this heart, whose unspeakable treasure Of love hath been wasted so vainly on clay, Like thine, unallured by the phantom of pleasure, Could rend every earthly affection away. And yet, in thy presence, the billows subsiding Obey the strong effort of reason and will, And my soul, in her pristine tranquillity gliding, Is calm as when God bade the ocean be still.

6. Thy soothing, how gentle! thy pity, how tender! Choir-music thy voice is—thy step angel grace, And thy union with deity shrines in a splendor Subdued, but unearthly, thy spiritual face. When the frail chains are broken, a captive that bound thee, Afar from thy home is the prison of clay, Bride of the Lamb, and earth’s shadows around thee Disperse in the blaze of eternity’s day.

7. Still mindful, as now, of the sufferer’s story, Arresting the thunders of wrath ere they roll, Intervene as a cloud between us and His glory, And shield from His lightnings the shuddering soul. As mild as the moonbeam in autumn descending That lightning, extinguished by mercy, shall fall, While he hears, with the wail of a penitent blending, Thy prayer, Holy Daughter of Vincent de Paul.

LXXXII.—WASHINGTON AND BONAPARTE COMPARED.

CHATEAUBRIAND.

1. If Washington and Bonaparte are compared, man with man, the genius of the first will seem to take a less lofty flight than that of the second. Washington belongs not, like Bonaparte, to the race of Alexanders and Cæsars, who surpassed the ordinary stature of the human race; he creates no sentiment of astonishment; he is not seen contending, on a vast theatre, for glory, with the greatest captains and most powerful monarchs of the earth, he traverses[579] no seas; he hurries not from Memphis to Vienna, from Cadiz to Moscow; his work is a simple one of defending himself, with a handful of citizens, within the narrow limits of domestic hearths, in a land without a past and without celebrity.